e master, meantime examining the servant, who,
on her side, looks without trembling at the all-powerful Czar.

"'You may withdraw,' the latter tells the officer. 'I will keep this
woman, and give her a palace.'

"Thus met for the first time Peter I and she who became Catherine of
Russia."

Having given this prologue, Balzac went on to speak of the staging of
his play, which he promised to arrange in accordance with what he knew
of the country's scenery and customs, Russia being, from an artistic
point of view, admirable to exhibit theatrically. Monsieur Hostein was
quite gained over by the prospect of something so novel; and Balzac,
paying him a second call, some few days later, pledged himself to
start for Kiew and Moscow very shortly, and, from there, to go to
Wierzchownia and finish his drama. The journey to Russia was made; and
Balzac, in due course, returned, but he did not bring with him the
denouement of _Peter and Catherine_.

Not that his mind was less preoccupied with the drama. On the
contrary, Champfleury, who went to see him in the Rue Fortunee, soon
after his arrival in Paris, found him more bent on writing for the
stage than ever. One idea of his now was to create a _feerie_, or sort
of pantomime, sparkling throughout with wit. Another was to form an
association for dramatic authors of standing (himself naturally
included), not to defend their interests, but to get them to work in
common, and to keep thus the various Paris theatres provided with
their work. It was a _trust_ scheme before the era of trusts. If the
thing were managed, they might renew the miracles of those
indefatigable and marvellous Spanish playwrights--Calderon, who
composed between twelve and fifteen hundred pieces, Lope de Vega, who
composed more than two thousand. However, he feared that many of his
colleagues might not care to fall in with his suggestions. "They are
idlers, donkeys," he added. "There is only one worker among them, and
that is Scribe. But what a piece of literature his _Memoirs of a
Hussar Colonel_ is!"

Another visitor to the Rue Fortunee in February 1848 was Monsieur
Hostein, to whom the novelist had offered for the spring a piece that
should replace _Peter and Catherine_. This time the manuscript was
ready. It lay on the table, bearing on its first page the title,
_Gertrude, a Bourgeois Tragedy_. The piece was a five-act one, in
prose. A couple of days later, actors and actresses were assembled in
Balzac's d